Major Chinese dairy companies on Friday vowed to ensure the safety of their products "at all costs" amid the ongoing tainted milk scandal.

"We firmly support the decision taken by the [Communist] Party central committee and the State Council. We will ensure food safety at all costs and fully implement the measures to clean up the dairy industry," said Yang Wenjun, president of the leading Mengniu group, which is headquartered in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Yang, on behalf of the company's 30,000 employees, apologized to the public as some batches of Mengniu's products were found to be contaminated with melamine, a hazardous industrial chemical.

"The contamination is a shame for us all that cannot be effaced," he added. Yang said the company was recalling all the tainted products and would destroy them.

Zhang Jianqiu, executive president of Yili, also announced full support of the central government's decision to overhaul the dairy industry.

Yili would review every stage in the processes of buying, processing and selling to ensure no more tainted milk.

Bright Dairy & Food Co., headquartered in Shanghai, would take all responsibility for its products and its compensation for victims of tainted milk would be twice what the government required, a company spokesman told Xinhua.

More than 6,200 infants have developed kidney stones after drinking baby formula tainted with the chemical melamine, which makes the protein content of the milk appearing higher than it is actually.

Four babies have died.

Dairy giant Sanlu, based in the Hebei provincial capital of Shijiazhuang in north China, was the first company exposed in the scandal.

(Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2008)